


one of us is changing, or maybe we've just stopped trying

by buckgaybarnes



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Erotic Cosmic Horror, Heavy pining, Hypothetical Xenophilia, M/M, Nightmares, Oral Sex, Pre-Uprising, Pseudo-Hate Sex, Sexual Fantasy, Size Kink, Weird Dirty Talk, involving kaiju, no wikia consulting we make up our own timeline of events like men, pretentious stream of consciousness and overuse of run-on sentences, the Opposite of Developing Relationship, this is a weird one guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 22:12:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14840117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckgaybarnes/pseuds/buckgaybarnes
Summary: Newton has always had a taste for the surreal.(Or: a "what if" for the ten year gap between films, wherein Newt and Hermann do, actually, have some contact.)





	one of us is changing, or maybe we've just stopped trying

**Author's Note:**

> so. uh. basically i combined "newt and hermann have covert hook-ups over the ten years that leave hermann sadder than ever" and the mildly cracky premise of "precursor newt can only get off to the thought of kaiju" in an unholy matrimony, and then decided to make up my own stuff to fill in the ten year gap with. like, REALLY make shit up. i send hermann to CA at one point. i don't even know if there's a CA Shatterdome. i also....get a bit soapboxy about some of the Ethical Quandaries i feel pr2 raised and then didn't actually examine, but i can't really imagine hermann being cool with the ppdc randomly training a bunch of teenagers to be rangers, and also this is my city now so. i always like trying to write hermann, too
> 
> the short and simple: newt suddenly has a Banging Kaiju Kink, hermann goes along with it because he loves newt and misses him, and i used a carole king song for the title

Newton leaves a month after they close the Breach.

He’s back now, and Hermann’s not sure what to say.

Newton leaves after they close the Breach, leaves for a new, fancy job and a new, fancy title, leaves for six long months, and he comes back with designer jeans and not a single excuse. The Shatterdome hasn’t changed all that much in his absence. Less people. More barren. Most personal artefacts have been stripped away, packed up (if their owners are living) or thrown out or reclaimed (if they’re, well, not). “They’re shutting it down in a month,” he tells Newton as they walk through the empty halls together, for nostalgia’s sake. “Moving us out. Mostly everyone’s gone, but—”

“But not you,” Newton says. His hands are shoved into the pockets, and he’s looking at Hermann fondly, the same way he looked at Hermann the night they closed the Breach. Warmth blossoms in Hermann’s chest.

“Not me,” Hermann agrees.

“Why not?” Newton says. His stare has become something penetrating.

Hermann swallows with a click. He doesn’t quite know what to say. He has a feeling Newton knows the answer, anyway: it’s not as if Hermann has anywhere else to _go_. He’s spent nearly the last decade of his life in the Hong Kong Shatterdome, made a life of food rations and Breach physics and the cold steel of the lab. He’s not sure if he knows how to function without it. And besides—the one person he saw himself creating a life after the war with— “You know me,” Hermann says, cracking a smile. “You’re the one always calling me a dinosaur. Too set in my ways, old habits die hard, your cliche of choice.”

“You _are_ a dinosaur,” Newton smirks. “I bet you’re bringing your chalkboards with you to—where are they sending you again? California?”

“So it seems,” Hermann says. He feels a general, all-encompassing apathy surrounding the concept of moving to California. If he had his way, he’d be staying here. If he had Newton, he’d go anywhere Newton wanted. But he has neither, so he’s moving to California.

“You pack up the lab yet?” Newton says, casual, nonchalant.

Newton never bothered packing up his side of the lab before he left without goodbyes. It angered Hermann, at first, and one night (he’d been drinking, he’s ashamed of it now) he stumbled over the tape, smashed specimen jars on the floor, shoved books from Newton’s desk and tore through the drawers, furious, _furious_ at Newton, for leaving his _mess_ behind, being a nuisance even when _he isn’t there because he_ left _Hermann_ , he _left_ Hermann behind, too, and the anger rushed from him like air from a popped balloon and he slumped against Newton’s dissection table, shoulders shaking, tears running freely, shattered glass and battered old sci-fi pulps and oozing green littering the floor around him. He cleaned it all up himself, meticulously, putting everything back exactly where it belonged and now—he can pretend Newton is still there, sometimes, that he’s merely left the room and will come waltzing back in any moment. Maybe with lunch trays, like he used to on days when Hermann’s leg was too stiff for the long walk down to the mess. Newton was kind when he wanted to be. Newton is kind.

Newton knows he did not pack up the lab before he left without goodbyes, and he is not being very kind now. “Ah,” Hermann stammers, avoiding Newton’s eyes, “no, I haven’t.” Yesterday Hermann queued up Newton’s iTunes on Newton’s old computer to a playlist called _Songs That Annoy Hermann_ , and stood at his chalkboard and closed his eyes, and he pretended.

“Can we go in and check it out, then?” Newton says. “I kinda miss it.”

“It’s a mess,” Hermann says quickly. He doesn’t think he could bear the sight of seeing Newton standing in the lab knowing he’d be leaving again in a day. “It’s being used for—for storage.”

“Ohhh-kay,” Newton says. He nudges Hermann with his elbow, and there’s a grin tugging at his lips. “Can we see your bedroom, then? I miss that too.”

 

During the war, he and Newton had an arrangement, one that benefited both of them: sex whenever either of them wanted it, no-strings-attached, provided the other was game; sometimes in the lab, sometimes on Hermann’s bed, sometimes on Newton’s bed, sometimes as an end to an argument, sometimes as a relief from stress or anxiety. After the war, in the month they spent together, it wasn’t so much an arrangement as—well, he and Newton held hands in the corridors, and Newton took him out to the movies and bought him dinner, and they kissed without expecting any sex to follow, and Newton told him he loved him the first time they _did_ have sex after their drift, riding Hermann slowly and carefully, and he told him when they woke up the next morning, and then every morning after that, and then he left Hermann behind and Hermann has to wonder if he really meant it.

He’s riding Hermann hard, now, hard and fast, bracing one hand against the headboard and jerking himself off with the other. “ _Hermann_ ,” he groans, as he works his hips frantically, “ _fuck_ , that’s good—I missed your cock—”

“I hope,” Hermann says, breathless, nails dug into Newton’s thighs and watching Newton’s muscles strain, his tattoos shift, the flush spreading across his beautiful face, “I hope that’s not all you missed.”

Newton grins at him again, but doesn’t answer. He grinds down, the head of Hermann’s cock hitting his prostate, and he squeezes himself and gasps “Oh _fuck_ yes,” and comes in spurts over his chest, Hermann’s undershirt. He clenches down around Hermann and Hermann chokes down a shout as he comes too.

“I missed you,” Hermann tells him softly, after they’ve shut off the lights and Newton lays curled on his side, sated and dozing, back pressed tight against Hermann’s chest. Hermann traces the scales and waves winding up Newton’s bicep with the tip of his index finger. Newton hums something noncommittal in response. He’s gone when Hermann wakes the next morning.

 

 

He doesn’t see Newton for another six months after that.

Hermann does move to California after all (and packs up more of Newton’s personal belongings than his own). Newton stops replying to his emails, but still texts him back occasionally—a _goodnight,_ or a _how was your day_ , or if Hermann is lucky, a small description of how Newton’s day went. No talk of what he’s working on over at Shao Industries, no questions as to what Hermann’s doing for the PPDC. It’s nothing like how their correspondence used to be, back when they were young.

_I have a long weekend_ , Newton texts him out of the blue one day. _Can I come and visit?_

Hermann’s in his (private) lab (always too quiet) when his phone lights up with the text and he nearly drops his chalk. _Of course_ , he texts back, maybe too eagerly. _You’re always welcome here._

He pulls Hermann into a tight hug when Hermann greets him at the airport. He’s still in the designer jeans, but he’s swapped his plain button-down for something more expensive and embroidered with tiny flowers. It looks nice with his eyes. He’s lost a bit of the roundness of his cheeks. Newton holds onto the sides of Hermann’s arms as he gives him a long once-over. “How is it,” he says, smile sharp, and he cups the side of Hermann’s face, “that you can live in _California_ and still be this pasty?” He brushes his thumb over one of Hermann’s cheekbones.

Hermann leans into the touch. God, he misses human contact—he misses Newton. “I’m not the sunbathing type,” he says. “I just burn.”

“You don’t even _leave_ your lab, do you?” Newton laughs. He drops his hands from Hermann but then swings one arm over his shoulder a moment later, snags his light carry-on bag from the ground and starts dragging him along towards the exit. Newton isn’t too far off in his assumption; Hermann’s fallen asleep at his desk more times than he cares to admit. It’s not like it used to be in Hong Kong, where he and Newton would look out for each other, make sure the other got at least _some_ sleep in a bed every night. Hermann’s alone in his lab. “I knew it,” he says, when Hermann doesn’t deny it. “Good thing I’m here.”

“It is,” Hermann says with a smile, and slips an arm about Newton’s waist.

Newton has very little interest in seeing Hermann’s lab, or even touring the Shatterdome. (“They all look the same.”) They drop his bag off in Hermann’s quarters (”That is a _massive_ shower, dude!”) and Newton insists they use the remaining hours of sunlight to take a walk along the beach the Shatterdome rests on. The evening is cool, and Hermann’s leg hasn’t been bothering him much today, so he agrees without complaint.

They stick to the wooden planks of the boardwalk so it’s easier for Hermann to navigate with his cane and walk arm-in-arm. The beach is mostly deserted, partially due to it being unofficial government property, partially due to general human wariness towards the ocean even a year after the Breach’s closure; still, more and more people trickle back into California every day, and Hermann suspects it won’t be long before the Pacific coastlines are packed again. For now, though, they get a lovely, unobstructed view of the sunset on the waves.

Newton is splashed in orange and pink and the salt breeze ruffles his hair sweetly, and Hermann feels, keenly, the agonizing months he spent without this man. “We could go somewhere nice for dinner,” Hermann offers. “My treat.” The mess hall at the California Shatterdome is a step above the one at Hong Kong—no more wartime rationing—but it’s still nothing special. He’d like to take Newton somewhere special, buy him those drinks with paper umbrellas and skewers of fruit he was always so fond of and kiss the taste off him.

Newton’s looking out over the ocean with a distant look. “It’s fine,” he says. “I’m not really that hungry.”

“There’s a place on the beach,” Hermann continues, lost in thoughts of chasing sticky, artificial coconut from Newton’s lips, “just a little further down I think you’d like. They—”

“I said it’s fine,” Newton snaps, turning to face him. Hermann closes his mouth instantly; something like guilt crosses Newton’s face. He reaches and threads his fingers through Hermann’s. “I ate on the flight over,” he explains, apologetic. “Sorry if I’m acting like a dick. Jet lag is a bitch.”

“It’s fine,” Hermann echoes. “You’re fine.” He’d forgotten about the time difference. (Newton hadn’t complained of it earlier, a tiny voice nags, hadn’t even asked to take a nap, just wanted to go for a walk, but Hermann ignores it. Newton having an erratic sleeping schedule is nothing out of the ordinary.)

“Know what I _could_ go for, though?” he says, and his sharp grin is back.

“No?”

“A shower,” Newton says.

Hermann’s shower is, as Newton put it, frankly massive, so it holds them both easily with room to spare. Newton holds Hermann in his arms and lets Hermann rest on him, taking the bulk of his weight, and the hot spray of the water is relaxing. “I wish we had this in Hong Kong,” Newton says, as Hermann kisses up his neck, rubs shampoo into his hair.

“Mm,” Hermann agrees, kissing across the freckles spreading across Newton’s shoulder as he massages Newton’s scalp. “You might’ve actually _bathed_ every now and then.”

“Asshole,” Newton snorts. “You smelled just as bad as me. Speaking of which, have you done your annual load of laundry yet, or are you just skipping this year?”

“Don’t be rude.” Hermann nips at the skin under Newton’s ear. “That’s _bi_ annual load of laundry.” He slides a soapy hand down to cup Newton’s ass. That, at least, is still soft. He squeezes it, kneads the skin.

“ _Sexy_ ,” Newton says, with a fake, exaggerated moan. “Ooh, baby, your sweaty cardigans get me _all_ hot and bothered.” He grinds his half-hard cock against Hermann’s to prove _some_ sort of point, and Hermann grips Newton’s ass with his other hand, too, and pulls their hips flush together and grinds back. He’s too eager for Newton’s touch for more foreplay, too starved from another six months without him to keep exchanging meaningless banter, and Newton is warm from the water and slippery from the soap and kisses Hermann lazily while Hermann ruts against his thigh. “How much did you miss me?” he breathes, and sucks at Hermann’s lower lip. “Tell me.”

“More than anything,” Hermann moans, and Newton grips his cock, “oh, Newton—” Hermann’s too wound up from the sheer _touch_ of Newton again, too, too eager, and he comes after only two more thrusts into Newton’s fist. Newton wipes his hand on Hermann’s chest, lets the stream of water from the showerhead rinse his release away down the drain.

Newton is easily riled up by bringing Hermann to orgasm—or at least, he always used to be—and Hermann knows, even in his afterglow and slumped against Newton’s chest, that he’s likely aching for his own orgasm as well. “You must be close, dear,” he murmurs, nuzzling into the slick skin of his neck, and slides his hand down, down to Newton’s—

Barely-erect cock. Hermann gives it a few fruitless tugs and mouths against Newton’s jaw, hoping maybe Newton just needs some encouragement, but—nothing. “Jet lag,” Newton says shortly, and shrugs Hermann off. “Come on, let’s get out. You’re heavy.”

Hermann holds onto the shower bar and frowns as he watches Newton switch off the water. What had he done wrong? Newton was so pliant, so responsive, so wonderful in Hermann’s arms, and now—he’s acting like he had on the boardwalk, as he stared at the ocean. He helps Hermann over the edge of the tub, at least, and hands him a towel, but he leaves the bathroom with another towel wrapped around his waist immediately afterwards, leaves Hermann to dry off alone.

Newton’s dimmed the lights by the time Hermann has finished drying off and changed into pajamas. Hermann emerges to see him sitting on top of the covers of Hermann’s bed, completely nude, his towel lying in a wet heap on the floor. He’s staring at a spot on the opposite wall—a framed photograph of Newton and Hermann from the day they closed the Breach. It's the only decoration Hermann has in his room. Hermann approaches the bed cautiously. “Do you have dreams about it?” Newton says quietly. He tears his eyes from the photograph to look at Hermann. There’s something flickering behind his eyes that unsettles Hermann.

“About what?” Hermann does not know why he bothers with the question. He knows exactly what Newton has dreams about, because Hermann has them too—but they’re _nightmares_ , not dreams, fragments of a world that isn’t theirs, of monsters, of blue, of an incomprehensible sense of terror that makes Hermann jerk awake in a sweat three times a week with tears stinging his eyes. He thinks he might just want to hear Newton say it aloud. To have someone else acknowledge it. He wets his lips and eases down onto the side of the bed. “Newton—”

“I dream about it,” Newton says, but it’s all wrong. He doesn’t sound scared. He sounds excited. “About being in the bunker. Do you remember? You must’ve—you must’ve seen in it in the drift. The—the tongue.”

A ceiling collapsing. Newton, cornered, terrified, tears streaming down his cheeks. Long tendrils, blue and blinding, searching, searching for him (Newton, not Hermann, it’s hard to separate the memories sometimes), just _brushing_ him—Hermann shudders. “Yes,” he says, “I do remember.”

“I dream,” Newton says, and his breathing is speeding up, “that it _does_ get me, and the—the tendrils get under my clothing, rip it all off—” He’s erect, Hermann notices, with a sort of detached disbelief. “—and just _touch_ me, explore me, because it likes me, it thinks—” He slides a hand around his cock and strokes himself. “—it thinks I’m interesting, that I’m the most interesting human it’s ever seen—Hermann, _touch_ me—”

Hermann watches Newton writhe against the sheets and leak over his hand, dazed. He replaces Newton’s hand with his, resumes the quick, rough strokes Newton had built himself up to, and Newton moans and clutches at the bedspread. “What else?” Hermann hears himself saying. He feels eons away. An impartial third party.

“They wrap around me,” Newton sighs, closing his eyes, losing himself in the fantasy, “and they— _oh_ —they hold me open and start—” he rocks into Hermann’s hand, “ _—fucking_ me, right there on the ground, and it’s hard and it hurts but I like it and I can’t move, I can’t fight, but I don’t _want_ to, I like it—” He whimpers and comes all over his clean chest, Hermann’s hand.

Hermann carefully pulls his hand away, just as carefully reaches onto the floor and picks up Newton’s towel. He wipes his hand off, then takes care of Newton’s chest, and then sets the towel back down. He’s not quite sure what to say, or how to proceed. “Do you—” he says finally, “do you have that dream a lot?”

Newton shrugs. He rolls over on his side, and his short breaths even out, become deeper. After a minute, Hermann shuts the bedside lamp off entirely and joins him.

Newton declines breakfast the next morning. He says he wants to sleep in instead. “We could get waffles,” Hermann says to the back of Newton’s head. There’s a deliberate space between them; both times Hermann tried to maneuver their bodies together throughout the night, to wrap an arm about Newton, Newton inched away from him. “Or pancakes. Remember,” Hermann smiles at the sudden memory of Newton in the Shatterdome, barefoot and boxer-clad, waving a smoking pan around frantically and shouting at Hermann to turn the sink on, “when we broke into the kitchen and you tried—”

“Yeah,” Newton says. “Ha.” He doesn’t show any sign of getting up soon. Hermann heaves a quiet sigh and starts getting dressed for the day.

There’s no line in the mess hall but most of the good food has been taken—it is fairly late in the morning—so Hermann grabs them each coffee and a few muffins and oranges and manages to balance it all on one tray back to his quarters. Newton’s still in bed when he pushes the door open. He clears his throat. “I have—”

“Can we go to the beach?” Newton cuts in. “I haven’t been swimming in ages.”

Hermann’s fingers tighten on his cane. “You know that I can’t,” he begins, then tries again, “it’s—difficult for me—”

“You can just lie on the sand and look pretty,” Newton says, sitting up, and gives him a bright smile that has no hint of whatever it was in his eyes that scared Hermann so. He’s still nude. “C’mon, you need some sun. And I didn’t pack a bathing suit for nothing.”

“Okay,” Hermann agrees.

Newton’s swim trunks are electric green and tiny UFOs appear on them when they get wet. They’re also far too small, and tight in a way that makes Hermann’s mouth dry. The view of the ocean is nice, but the view of Newton—shirtless, water droplets rolling down his tattooed chest, swim trunks clinging to his body—diving in and out of waves is even nicer, and Hermann forgets entirely the book he’s brought to entertain himself. Newton notices him looking and waves coyly at him, striking a pose. Hermann waves back.

In the light of day, with Newton acting so normal, his old self again, it might be easy to forget the previous night. To just lie back and oogle Newton’s ass and think of nothing else. Hermann does not.

Newton has always had a _taste_ for the surreal. His tattoos are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. There’s his abandoned collection of lurid vintage pulps with strapping men getting their spacesuits ripped off by aliens on the cover, of course, his deep devotion to B-list science fiction movies, his—Hermann colors—collection of bizarrely-shaped and bizarrely-hued sex toys Hermann had caught glimpses of Newton using on himself in the drift. Hermann never _meant_ it when he called Newton a kaiju groupie, just like Newton never meant it when he implied Hermann would wank off over his equations. _I dream that it does get me_ , Newton said, _I can’t fight but I don’t want to._

It’s a harmless fantasy. (Hermann does not dwell on Newton not being able to get off in the shower with him. Jet lag, of course, it was jet lag.) People are allowed fantasies. Who is Hermann to deny Newton one? Or, if not a fantasy, it’s—Newton’s way of coping with the nightmares. He's making them into something pleasurable.

“Hi hot stuff,” Newton says, dropping down next to him on the towel he stole from Hermann’s closet. His hair is plastered to his head, and he’s squinting. Hermann smiles and pulls Newton’s glasses out of his top pocket, unfolds them and slides them on Newton. Newton grabs him by the collar, pulls him down and kisses him quickly. “It’s so weird seeing you in _shorts_.” Newton runs his hand up one of Hermann’s bare legs, pulling at the folded cuff of one leg of his khaki shorts. He’s cold from the water, and Hermann shivers with pleasure at his touch.

“Don’t get used to it,” Hermann jokes. “I’m burning them as soon as you leave.” The moment he says it, the smile slides from his face and something icy clenches around his heart. Newton will leave, and Hermann will be left alone again.

Newton does not notice.

He manages to convince Newton to stop at a ocean-front bar on the walk home for late lunch, since Newton outright ignored his offering of breakfast and Hermann is hungry. They get disappointing sandwiches and Newton mostly just picks at his. Hermann can’t help but wonder if his loss of appetite has more to do than with just jet lag. “How’s work?” he tries. “What are they having you do over at Shao’s?”

Newton pulls some lettuce out from between the slices of bread and starts shredding it into long, thin pieces. “Oh,” he says, airily, “this and that. Bit of j-tech.”

In Hong Kong, Newton was, of course, the biology specialist, but Hermann recalls that some of Newton’s undergraduate work was in engineering. It's nothing new to Newton. He cobbled together a working pons interface from garbage, after all. J-tech, though—that’s surprising. “You’re designing jaegers?” he says, not bothering to cover his shock.

Newton tenses. “You don’t think I can?”

“No, that’s not what I—” Hermann sighs. “I simply don’t see why there’s a need for them.”

“The Breach could reopen any moment,” Newton says, peeling the lettuce into smaller pieces. “We should be ready.”

“Not according to my calculations.” Hermann frowns. It was the first thing he and Newton discussed after the mission to close the Breach was a success—how long they had to prepare in the event of its return, how long they could enjoy the peace together. Hermann ran the numbers over and over and came up negative each time and Newton knew this, Newton had been standing over his shoulder and double-checking his math the entire time. “Newton, it’s _highly_ unlikely—beyond that, even—”

“And what are _you_ doing, then?” Newton says with a scowl. “If them coming back is _so_ unlikely then why haven’t you—retired, or something?”

Hermann wanted to retire. He wanted to retire with Newton and live out the rest of their days in some small cottage in Germany, or New England, anywhere Newton wanted, settle back into comfortable academia, university lecturing. Instead, he’s rewriting the same equations over and over on a chalkboard in a lonely lab. He never imagined a future without Newton in it, so he’s resigned himself to the past. “Quit,” he says quietly. “Please. I’ll quit too. We can do whatever you want. It can just be you and me—”

“Can’t,” Newton interrupts. “Gotta be ready.”

 

They have sex again that night, but Newton is subdued. He always rides Hermann with great enthusiasm, throwing back his head and vocalizing exactly everything he’s feeling, but tonight he rocks his hips in a monotonous back-and-forth pattern and stares blankly ahead at the wall. It’s not very enjoyable for Hermann, either. He worries at his bottom lip and stares at Newton’s flagging erection. Maybe, if— “Would you like to tell me about your dream again?” he offers, and hopes Newton will say no.

Newton blinks, stilling on top of him. “My dream?”

“About—” Hermann forces back a shudder. “About the bunker. Otachi.”

“ _Oh_.” Newton closes his eyes. His cock twitches. “What do you want to hear?”

None of it. “Why does it arouse you?”

“I like how I feel—helpless. Small.” Newton starts rocking his hips again. “I like—how it feels to have those. Weird tendril things in me.” He’s picking up speed, and Hermann moans softly with every clench of soft heat around him. “Fucking me. Hard. And there are—a bunch of them. And more and more keep trying to get in me. And I keep coming but they don’t care, they keep—” He whimpers. “—keep fucking me, and more keep forcing—” He’s started fucking into his fist. “—their way into me.”

“And you—enjoy that?” Hermann pants, swallowing his revulsion.

“ _Yes_ ,” Newton moans. “Fuck yes, I love it, I love it so _much_ —” His voice gets louder, “I just want _more_ —” He comes with a shout; Hermann thrusts up into him once and follows, but he remembers the terror Newton felt in the bunker, a terror that clouds the memory he unintentionally hijacked from Newton _so_ strongly, and wonders  _how_.

 

 

It’s another year before he sees Newton after that. The nightmares have gotten worse. He leaves his lab less. Sleeps less. Eats less. He starts a new medication for the worsening pain in his leg with side effects that leave him irritable and short-tempered, more than he ever was in Hong Kong; his interns (because he has those now) avoid him as much as possible. Newton doesn’t text anymore, and then one day he does.

_Still in California?_

Hermann initiates the hug in the airport this time, and clings a second too long. He’s wearing the shorts that Newton liked so much last time. “I decided not to burn them after all,” he declares.

“Huh?” Newton’s swapped his muddy and scuffed docs out for sleeker, shiner dress shoes. He’s wearing another nicely embroidered and expensive-looking shirt—teal, with yellow flowers. His hair is combed. He spares a quick glance at Hermann’s khakis. “Oh, right.”

They don’t bother with social niceties. Hermann doesn’t ask about Newton’s work and Newton doesn’t ask about Hermann’s. They don’t go for a walk, and Hermann doesn’t bother offering dinner or drinks or sunsets or taking Newton to the beach and kissing him on the sand. They sit in silence on the cab ride to the Shatterdome, in silence on the elevator ride down to Hermann’s floor, and Newton sets his small bag down on Hermann’s dresser and then pushes him onto the bed.

“Slow down,” Hermann gasps, as Newton pulls open his belt, his fly, yanks down his shorts and briefs in speed that’s almost too manic, too intense. “We don’t have to rush, we have—” Newton licks up his cock and Hermann bites down on his fist to cover up his groan. Oh, God, it’s too much too soon, having Newton so close again. He clutches wildly at Newton’s hair.

“Last time was so hot,” Newton says, nuzzling Hermann’s erection with his cheek. It’s the first thing he’s said since the airport. “I couldn’t stop thinking about it.”

Hermann couldn’t either. For different reasons. “R-really?”

Newton laps at the head of his cock. “I started thinking,” he sucks it into his mouth, and then pops off with a noise that’s obscene, spit and precome trailing from his lips, “what if _you_ were there too? In the bunker?”

A ceiling collapses. Newton, shaking, terrified, crying. Tendrils, long and blue, searching, for him, for them(?)—but it’s just the drift bleeding over. Hermann wasn’t in the bunker, Hermann doesn’t want to be in the bunker. “I—” he begins to protest (please don’t say that, Newton, please), but Newton mouths hot and messy kisses down to the base of his cock, teeth grazing, tongue working, and the words die in his throat. Newton’s nose brushes his pubic hair.

“I dreamt about that, too,” Newton continues as if he never stopped, voice low, and he’s begun rubbing himself through his jeans. “That it ripped through our clothing, wrapped around both of us, pressed us together, and you were scared but I wasn’t so I kissed you—”

A ceiling collapses; tendrils, long and blue, searching, for them; Hermann, shaking, terrified, crying; Newton calm, soothing him, kissing his tears away. He can picture it too vividly, too clearly. If he closes his eyes he might smell the dust of the bunker. Hermann swallows down bile. _Talk about something else, anything else_. “Newton—”

Newton licks a stripe back up, sucks in the head of his cock once more and then puffs air over his saliva. “And then,” he says, palming himself faster, “you hold me while they fuck me, just how I like it, and the fuck you too, and we can’t kiss anymore because, because they’re—in my mouth—” He sucks down Hermann’s cock again, eyes closed, bobbing his head and moaning and grinding against his palm.

Hermann closes his eyes, too, but he does not think of bunkers and kaiju. He thinks of the first time they made love after the drift. How softly they kissed, how softly they held each other, how softly Newton breathed that he loved Hermann in his ear, over and over, how he never wanted to be apart from Hermann again. Newton sucks him off and Hermann comes down his throat sighing Newton’s name, but it’s the Newton of his memory he pictures. Newton sits up on his heels and wipes his mouth off on the back of his hand; there’s a wet stain on the front of his dark denim, and he’s breathing hard.

“God,” he says, and “fuck, that was good.”

 

The nightmares are worse than night. They’re not of the bunker, like they have been for the past year, but of the Anteverse. It’s infinitely more horrifying. He wakes up shaking with sweat cooling on his skin to see Newton wide awake and watching him, face cast in shadow. Newton reaches out, brushes the side of Hermann’s face. “Did you dream about it, too?” he says quietly. “The Anteverse?”

“It was—” Hermann’s voice cracks, and he shakes his head.

“I know,” Newton breathes.

A chill runs down Hermann’s spine. _No, you don’t._

 

 

Three years. They want Hermann in Sydney. New jaegers, revitalized base, they could use someone of Hermann’s experience. He’d have a bigger lab. Underlings. A private office. A nice flat off the base. Hermann has nothing for him in California. He says yes. He packs up his lab once more, gives away Newton’s old pulp novels and some of his bulkier equipment—he’ll request a new chalkboard once he gets to Sydney—but brings some of Newton’s action figures he hoarded from the lab, the framed photograph, Newton’s old letters tied up in a string and stored carefully in a box. The Sydney Shatterdome is sleeker and newer, chrome and glass, and his office has a view of the water, and he has his own team to command as he wishes.

He hates it.

He wonders if Newton had any hand in designing the newest jaegers he sees on the base every day. He doesn’t think so; they’re too sleek and high-tech and boring to look at. Newton would make them more exciting.

Newton, Newton. Five years and he’s still all Hermann can think about.

 

The PPDC sends Hermann to Shanghai for a week to check up on the progress of the new jaegers. He’s the most experienced, they claim, but Hermann has a feeling they know of his past with Newton and are doing him a small kindness. He emails Newton the day he accepts the offer, which is also the day he receives the offer. _We could get dinner,_ he writes. _You could show me around. Catch up._

Newton replies within the hour. It’s one sentence. _Do you have anywhere to stay?_

_I’d imagine they’re setting me up at some hotel or another._

_Stay with me_ , Newton answers within minutes.

 

Newton’s apartment is as sleek as the Sydney Shatterdome, and he’s got massive windows that overlook the city and bathe the room in moonlight and flickering pinks and purples, and he presses Hermann against them as roughly as he’s kissing him.

Hermann tugs on his hair and moans and moans at Newton bites bruises along his neck and slides his hands up the back of Hermann’s button-up, scratching at the skin. “I missed you so much,” he admits in a voice that’s dangerously tearful, “oh God, Newton, I miss you,” he doesn’t mean to let the next part slip out but Newton’s _here_ , “I love you, I love you—”

Newton’s bed is almost the size of Hermann’s old lab in California and the sheets are a fine silk. His medication is stronger and he can put strain his leg for longer, so he’s able to have Newton on his back beneath him this time, spread and moaning. Hermann goes gently, kisses the top of Newton’s chest as he rocks into him. He wants to make this last; he wants to feel every long, wonderful second he has with Newton. “Harder,” Newton urges, crossing his legs behind Hermann and digging his heel into Hermann’s lower back, “go _harder_.”

He’s thinner still and cleanly-shaven, but he’s still just as impatient. Hermann ignores him and lingers over kissing his lips, and Newton huffs in annoyance. “I love you,” he confesses again, stroking back Newton’s hair. “I love you _so_ much. Please, I—quit, we can both quit, I need you—” He rocks in again, slowly, feeling _everything—_

“Damn it, Hermann,” Newton growls, “go _harder_. I’m doing you a favor, you could at least—”

Hermann freezes. “Doing me a _favor_?” He tries to pull away, but Newton’s legs are like a vice around his midsection. Newton’s cock isn’t hard, he realizes.

“Oh, come on,” Newton says, tone light, “I didn’t mean—I was _kidding_. I’m enjoying it, really. I just—”

“What?” Hermann says sharply.

“I need,” Newton shifts in the bed and digs his heels in a little more to Hermann’s back, and Hermann slides in deeper with a surprised groan, “ _more_.”

Hermann has a feeling he knows what Newton needs; it doesn’t mean he wants to indulge him in it. His heart pounds. “More—?”

“Talk to me,” Newton begs.

Hermann can very easily wrench Newton off of him and leave. The PPDC gave him a credit card and told him they’d cover all his expenses, hotel room included. He doesn’t have to stay here. But Newton is so warm, so wanting, and Hermann wants, too, wants badly. Wants Newton in any way he’s allowed to have him. (He’ll take what he can get.) “Do you still dream?” he murmurs, thrusting in in one hard go. (Hermann still dreams.)

“Yes,” Newton moans.

He thrusts in again, grinding down. “Tell me about—about your dreams.”

“Do you ever wonder,” Newton says, eyes drifting shut, “what it’d be like to—to get fucked by one of them?”

Sweat drips down Hermann’s forehead and he speeds his thrusts. Newton’s hands fly up to his shoulders and he digs his nails in tight. He doesn’t want Newton to keep talking. “N-no—” Everyone has fantasies, he reminds himself. Newton’s tastes have always veered towards the surreal. The kaiju are dead. They killed them all. It’s just a fantasy.

“I want it, Hermann,” he sighs, “I want it so _bad_ , I just want—”

Hermann swallows thickly, grits his teeth for what he’s about to say. “A small one?” he suggests. Everyone has fantasies. Newton is allowed fantasies. Hermann loves Newton, misses Newton. If it means being close to Newton, he’ll indulge in whatever Newton wants. “A nice—small one, the perfect size for you, survives and—and gets lost—”

“And I help it,” Newton moans, “and—he’s beautiful, and he thinks I’m beautiful— _harder_ , Hermann—” He tosses his head to the side, throat bobbing, and God, Newton _is_ beautiful, Hermann loves him, Hermann fucks him harder, pretends he doesn’t notice the slip-up of a humanizing pronoun and doesn’t wonder what it means.

“You _are_ beautiful,” he says against the skin of Newton’s throat instead. “Oh, Newton—”

Newton continues like he hasn’t heard him. “And he’s curious,” he gasps, “about me, about how I work, so I undress and lay down, and open myself up for him, touch myself slowly—”

Hermann starts stroking Newton’s cock in time with every hard thrust into him. “Does he—?”

“Uh-huh.” Newton is so _hard_ , and his cock is leaking, and his mouth drops open as he pants. “He’s so big but I can take it, I can take _all_ of it, and it feels like—like I’m being split apart, fuck, _fuck_ —” Newton devolves into high cries, body trembling, tossing his head from side to side, and Hermann drives into him and jerks him off, and when they’ve finished Newton passes out almost immediately, and Hermann stares at the vaulted ceiling of Newton’s bedroom and thinks of kaiju and does not fall asleep for a while, and when he does he dreams.

 

Newton gives him a tour of Shao Industries the next day, shows him his newest project—jaegers of some sort, he’s quite cagey on the details—and steals kisses whenever they’re left alone in a room together. Mako’s there, which is a pleasant surprise, and she hugs Hermann but greets Newton tersely. (Hermann tries not to dwell over this.) He laughs at Newton’s terrible Mandarin—five years and the best he can do is ask for tap water or directions to the toilets. They go out for lunch, at a cafe with a sunlit outdoor patio, and Newton actually eats something, which pleases him to see. He watches fondly as Newton struggles to pick up noodles with his chopsticks and stains his tie with sauce.

“They’ve started training new pilots,” Hermann says, turning a piece of chicken over and over on his plate. “Teenagers. Children, really.” Even in the worst days of the war the PPDC never resorted to child soldiers; he’s not sure why they’ve decided to _start_ with them this time around, when there’s no guarantee there will even be a war, when there are plenty of adults out there who are far more qualified, far more able to understand what they’re signing themselves up for. Fascists! Newton would call them. Fascists the lot of them. Raze the PPDC to the ground, no survivors. Stacker Pentecost never would’ve stood for this. Hermann sighs. “Raised on hero-worship and myth.”

Newton winds noodles around his chopsticks slowly. “It won’t matter soon, though,” he says. “We’re making jaeger drones, piloted completely remotely. No humans required."

“Is _that_ what you’ve been working on?” Hermann frowns. The PPDC hadn’t told him exactly _what_ he’d be checking up on the progress of, just that they wanted him to scope everything out, make sure the project is on schedule. It’s not a bad idea, the remotely piloted jaegers, but he can’t see a massive corporation like Shao Industries funneling _that_ much money into something that—benevolent. There must be a catch of some sort, besides the obvious profit they’ll make from selling the drones off to the PPDC.

“Yeah. I shouldn’t be telling you about it, actually.” Newton says it jokingly, but there’s something in his tone that lets Hermann know the conversation is finished. He didn’t even ask what Hermann is doing over in Sydney. “Anyway, how do you like Shanghai? Pretty sweet, huh?”

“I much prefer it to Sydney,” Hermann confesses.

Newton arches an eyebrow and slurps a noodle down obnoxiously. “Yeah?”

“Yes.” Hermann can’t help but smile. “You’re here.”

Newton cuts work for the rest of the day (“They’ll survive without me,” he says, dismissively) and insists on covering the charge for their cab ride back to his extravagant apartment—he still never bothered getting his license, but he appears to think himself above a bus pass now. “Dude,” he says in the elevator ride up, “they are paying me _so much_ , it’s nuts. We can do whatever the hell you want when you’re here. All on me. Buffets every night. Champagne.” He’s rambling excitedly as he unlocks his condo door. “Oh, man, you haven’t seen it yet but I’ve got this massive tub, it’s like a _jacuzzi_ , we should have champagne in _that_. With candles. And I’ll blow you or something underwater. How hot would that be?” He pushes Hermann against the door as soon as he closes it and kisses him breathless. “I am gonna wine and dine your _ass_.”

Hermann is taken aback. Newton’s been sweet and open in affection all day long, and it’s nice, it’s wonderful, but— “Why haven’t you texted me?” It spills out before he can stop himself, but it’s all he can think about, all he’s wanted to know the answer to since he landed in Shanghai. “Or emailed. Or—frankly, Newton, I would’ve taken a _postcard_.” Three years he went without a single word from Newton. Three years. And now that they’re face to face again, Newton care barely hold a conversation with him, just wants to fuck every free moment they get.

“I’m a busy man,” Newton purrs, and nips at Hermann’s lower lip. He’s rubbing against Hermann’s front eagerly. When Hermann doesn’t reciprocate, just stays very still, he pouts. “Oh, come on, Hermann, you couldn’t _shut up_ about how much you miss me last night—”

Anger boils over in Hermann, and he pushes Newton bodily away from him. “Is this another _favor_ , then?” he spits. “Some sort of—pity fuck? Am I that pathetic to you?” Newton says nothing, tries to kiss him again, but Hermann snags his wrists and flips them around to pin Newton against the door instead. “I’m doing you just as much of a favor,” he continues viciously, as Newton squirms. “I’m the only one who can stomach hearing about your _disgusting kaiju fetish_ —”

“Are you jealous?” Newton sneers at him, but his voice is low and he stares at Hermann’s lips through heavy eyelids, and Hermann is, God help him, he’s jealous of damned _kaiju_ because apparently he’s not enough for Newton anymore, all Newton wants is some—disgusting alien cock up his ass. Hermann leans in and bites down hard on Newton’s neck, hard enough to bruise, hard enough that Newton yelps and swears and smacks his head back against the door.

Hermann’s jealous, and he’s furious, and when they get to the bedroom—biting, kissing, scratching at each other on the way—he bends Newton over the desk, barely prepping him before he thrusts into him roughly. Newton scrabbles at the wood, arching his back and crying out. “You’re disgusting,” Hermann snarls into his ear. “Is this the only reason you want me around? So you can open your legs and pretend I’m a bloody _kaiju_?” He grips Newton’s hips and starts pounding into him harder, harder, the force pushing Newton further up onto the desk. “Are you picturing one _now_?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Newton whines. He reaches down to touch himself, but Hermann acts fast, pins his wrists above his head with one hand.

“ _Tell me_ , Newton,” he orders angrily, grinding down on his prostate.

“It finds me,” Newton says, frantic, desperate, and he ruts against the polished wood of the desk, “it needs to mate and it finds me, and I—I can’t do anything because it surprises me, but it— _oh_ —its cock is so big l—”

Hermann pictures it—Newton being claimed by a kaiju, hole stretched by some monstrous cock, whimpering and shuddering and begging for more, coming again and again as it takes him, and rage and repulsion churn in equal parts in Hermann’s stomach and he yanks Newton’s head back by his hair and fucks Newton faster. “Disgusting,” he repeats. “Disgusting, disgusting—”

“And then you come in,” Newton whimpers, “and I’m covered in—in jizz and I’m still being fucked and you just watch, and you tell me—you tell me I’m a disgusting kaiju slut—oh—say it, Hermann, please, say it—”

“You _are_ ,” Hermann has to let go of Newton’s wrists to brace himself on the desk, panting, “you _are_ a disgusting little kaiju slut—”

Newton wails as he comes, untouched, and Hermann hates this, hates him, himself, mostly, and he pulls out and finishes on Newton’s back. White against the swirling colors. Newton just whimpers again, still slumped over his desk. Hermann staggers to the bathroom and locks the door, and leans against the mirror for what feels like hours. His eyes are wet. He doesn’t want to finish out the week in Newton’s bed. The PPDC offered to fund his hotel room—he doesn’t have to spend every night knowing Newton sees him as little more than a quick—

“Hermann,” Newton says softly from the other side of the door, and Hermann opens it and accepts the embrace.

 

Hermann finishes out the week in Newton’s bed. It’s fine, as long as he avoids any and all sexual advances Newton makes towards him. It’s more difficult than he expected. Newton brings up the jacuzzi-sized bathtub again, with champagne and a blowjob for Hermann, tries to coerce him into quickies in abandoned Shao Industries conference rooms, settles up behind him and presses against his ass when Hermann makes them dinner in Newton’s pristine kitchen one night. Hermann rejects him each time—too tired, he says, too nervous of being caught, too hungry.

 

They put on a movie on Newton’s massive flatscreen Hermann’s last night there and Newton sits as close to him as possible on the sofa. His hand keeps creeping over to Hermann’s thigh, and Hermann keeps his eyes glued to the screen. “I’m gonna miss you when you leave,” Newton says, hand creeping down further, and he runs a finger along the seam of the crotch of Hermann’s slacks.

“Please stop groping me,” Hermann sighs, and Newton ignores him and starts rubbing him more insistently. It’s hard to keep up the facade of disinterest, especially when his cock begins to harden under Newton’s practiced fingers. Newton presses his face against Hermann’s neck and teases his pulse point with his tongue.

“I want you to fuck me against the windows,” he murmurs, and slides his hand up to Hermann’s belt, “where anyone can see—”

Impulsively, Hermann glances over at the massive wall of windows. It’s too dark out and they’re far too high up for them to have any sort of something resembling an audience, but it’s an exciting thought nonetheless. Staking his claim over Newton. Newton pulls his belt open, undoes the button of his slacks. _He wishes you were a kaiju_. “Please stop,” Hermann sighs again, and shoves Newton’s hand away. Newton recoils, frowning. Hurt.

“I was just trying—”

“No,” Hermann says shortly. He pats Newton’s hand. “Can’t we just enjoy each other’s company? Talk, for once?” It’s more bitter than he intends, but it’s not like Newton _replies_ to his messages, not like he talks to Hermann anymore. He’s practically a stranger, in his expensive apartment and expensive new clothes, his kitchen low-stocked with food but well-stocked with alcohol, how—throughout the week—Hermann often woke to see Newton standing at the bedroom window, motionless, just gazing out at the night sky.

Newton stares at him for a few minutes, gnawing on his lip. Then he stands up and walks into his bedroom without another word.

 

He pays for Hermann’s taxi fare to the airport the next morning. They hug goodbye outside Newton’s apartment, but it’s brief, awkward. “Thank you,” Hermann says. “If you’re ever in Sydney—”

“Yeah,” Newton says.

 

 

They don’t send Newton to Sydney, but they do send Hermann back to Shanghai two years later. Not for progress updates on the drones (which Hermann is very careful to avoid disclosing he knows about) or overseeing any new projects, but for a _banquet_ , of all things. A banquet to celebrate the official PPDC and Shao Industries merger—Newton’s branch has become some sort of private sector of the PPDC, now. Hermann doesn’t particularly want to go, but distinguished PPDC employees are encouraged to attend and Hermann’s been at this for nearly two decades, so he feels obligated. He does use PPDC funds to book a hotel room this time and doesn’t email Newton. He wonders if Newton will bother to attend; he didn’t seem to like his boss _or_ the company that much when Hermann visited, and treated his work like a chore. Or if he does attend, whether Hermann will even see him.

They are, as luck would have it, seated at the same table.

If Newton notices how Hermann’s let his hair grow longer (Hermann doesn’t care enough to cut it anymore), how he’s leaning a little more heavily on his cane, how lined his face has become (Hermann sleeps even less now, and when he does he’s plagued by disorienting and disturbing nightmares of the Anteverse) he doesn’t comment on it, just like Hermann doesn’t comment on _thin_ Newton’s become, how neat and slicked his hair is. He doesn’t ask Hermann how he’s been, or how work is, and Hermann doesn’t bother extending the same to Newton.

What Hermann does say is: “I never thought I’d see the day you wore a suit.”

“Right back at you,” Newton says. Newton’s in a stylish, deep purple number that puts Hermann’s black coat and black tie to shame.

Hermann takes a long drink of his wine. The ceremony isn’t anywhere close to starting, and dinner’s been delayed. The kitchens are short-staffed, apparently. “What happened to your glasses?” Newton’s thick, boxy frames are nowhere to be seen. His face looks bare without them; his eyes too piercing.

“Trying out contacts,” he says. “Like it?”

_No._ Hermann hums something vague in response. He finishes off his glass of wine, drags his finger around the rim. “I saw Miss Mori in the entrance hall when I arrived,” he says. She’s older, too, more mature, changed vastly in the two years since he hugged her briefly in the Shao building. She’s lost the streaks of blue in her hair. “Do you talk to her often?” Mako used to love coming down to the lab, back when she was still a lonely child, and Hermann would let her draw and play hangman on his chalkboards and Newton would let her mess about on the keyboard he kept in there.

“Nah,” Newton says, and doesn’t elaborate.

 

They end up in a _janitor’s closet_ with their slacks and briefs around their knees and Hermann’s hand on both their cocks, jerking them off hard and fast. Newton’s shirt is open just enough for Hermann to suck bruises into his collarbone, and he moans and whimpers and claws at the cement wall as he bucks into Hermann’s fist. Newton’s babbling about Hermann’s hands, his cock, how he misses Hermann being inside of him, how he misses _Hermann_ , and Hermann thinks _then quit, quit, and I’ll quit too, we can still piece a life together, you bastard,_ “Do you really miss me?” he hisses into his skin. “Or do you just miss having someone to get you off?”

“Can’t—can’t it be both?” Newton gives a short, breathless laugh, and Hermann scrapes his teeth across the rising and falling crests of waves between Newton’s collarbones, the top of a kaiju. Has Newton fucked other people since he left Hermann? (Hermann hasn’t.) The beady eyes of the kaiju on Newton’s chest are boring into Hermann and he can’t help it, he has to know, he needs to know,

“Do you still dream of kaiju?” he says, fingers slick with their precome, does Newton still dream of them like Hermann and _not_ like Hermann at all, of a ceiling collapsing and terror or a ceiling collapsing and arousal, being hunted, chased, (desired), the Anteverse’s (sickening, erotic) blues. He dreamt of Newton, one night, nude and wrapped in the blue coils of Otachi’s tongue, beckoning to Hermann, and another night that _he_ was a kaiju, gigantic and powerful, claiming Newton—small, defenseless, legs wide apart for him—as Newton so desperately wanted to be claimed, and Newton begged and whimpered and called out Hermann’s name and Hermann awoke, both times, with ejaculate staining his pajamas and retching violently. Hermann dreams of kaiju.

“Yes,” Newton sighs with a blissful smile, and Hermann kisses him so he won’t have to look at it anymore.

Hermann paid for a hotel room with PPDC funds, but at the end of the banquet Newton holds his hand out in a silent request—Newton, wrapped in Otachi’s tongue, bathed in blue, beckoning to Hermann; Newton, the pied piper, a siren, an incubus, the love of Hermann’s life—and Hermann falls, into a cab, into Newton’s apartment, into Newton’s bed and his arms and his orbit, and hates himself and hates Newton and loves Newton, loves Newton so much it’s going to burn him up and kill him. Hermann is there for three days and they fuck each night, each morning, and he dreams of Newton and kaiju (“I dreamt I was a kaiju,” he says, as Newton bounces on his cock, and Newton’s whines get higher, and Hermann’s gut twists, “I dreamt I was a _kaiju_ , and—you begged for me—for me to—”

“Did you make me take it?” Newton cries, “Did you make me take all of it? Was I good? Was I good for you?”) and wakes up sweating, panicking, reaching for Newton.

“Let me stay,” he pleads in the light of his last dawn in Shanghai, wrapping Newton in his arms like Otachi’s tongue in his nightmares, pressing kisses to his hair, loving him so much it might kill him. “I’ll quit and move here, please, I can’t—” His voice cracks. “I can’t be away from you anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” Newton says.

 

 

They don’t send Newton to Sydney, and they don’t send Hermann back to Shanghai, and it’s 2035 and the PPDC is readying teenagers raised on hero-worship and myth for a war that ended a decade ago. Hermann doesn’t leave his lab, much, only speaks to his interns when he has to, and he mixes chemicals into kaiju blood for something to do with himself, and lets the clutter build up in his office, and he dreams of Newton, and he dreams of kaiju.

They don’t send Newton to Sydney and they don’t send Hermann back to Shanghai but Shao Industries is scheduled to unveil the new drone program that Newton worked on next week and they’ll be sending representatives, and Hermann hopes that, just maybe—

**Author's Note:**

> the usual "on twitter at hermanngaylieb and tumblr at hermannsthumb"
> 
> also like man, i'm sorry, hermann. i'm going to write 9k words of you on your honeymoon with newt after this to make up for it


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